MI man's doorstop rock turns out to be a $100k meteorite

Sirbescu says people ask her all the time if odd rocks they found are meteorites.

"For 18 years, the answer has been categorically "no" - meteor wrongs, not meteorites", she said in a statement.

"I could tell right away that this was something special", Sibescu said.

The almost 23-pound hunk of iron and nickel is the sixth largest meteorite found in Michigan, according to the Smithsonian Museum and Central Michigan University.

'It's the most valuable specimen I have ever held in my life, monetarily and scientifically, ' Dr Sirbescu said.

Sirbescu sent a small sample to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC for further analysis where it was estimated the meteorite could be worth around $100,000.

The man, who wishes to remain anonymous, bought a farm in Edmore, Mich., in 1988.

The farmer said it was a meteorite that "made a heck of a noise when it hit" Earth back in the 1930s.

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What makes the meteorite found in MI unique is that it is 88% iron and 12% nickel.

The farmer told him it was a meteorite, that it was part of the property and he could have it. The space rock continued to perform that job for decades, only recently being identified as something very unique and valuable. He and his father dug it out the next morning and it was still warm.

"A piece of the early solar system literally fell into our hands", Dr Sirbescu said in a video made by the university to promote its discovery.

The largest meteorite found on Earth was the Hoba in Namibia, weighing 66 tons.

The meteorite hasn't sold yet, but the Smithsonian Museum is considering buying it, as well as another collector.

Mazurek has been retired since 2014, and he said the meteorite could turn into a cushion for his golden years. A colleague there further analyzed the sample, including with an acid test to reveal the Widmanstätten pattern, a property of most iron-nickel meteorites that can not be faked.

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